There is a strong possibility that my roommates begin to hate songs because of me and my tendency to overplay them. My most recent venture was one I heard one of my favorite artists from college come out with a new single: "Hold On" by Colbie Caillat. Judge on, judgers, I love this one.
Some of you know that I love music. The Lord uses music often to speak to me; mostly because He knows that's when I'm most open. This is probably why I think the Byzantine Liturgy is beautiful: completely chanted. This is why I love to sing at mass: because the Lord has given us something amazing with music. I don't only use music in my prayer, and this isn't the ONLY WAY He speaks to me, but this is just a small background into me. Silence is desperately important in our loud culture, but we have to see beauty where beauty is, and that is in music at times.
The lyrics of this song are pretty annoying if you're simply looking at them in the context of a "love song". Today we live in a culture of instant gratification; that's pretty evident. I'm not going to use this as an opportunity to launch into an exhortation against the culture right now. No, instead, I'm going to ask you to take a second and find beauty where you maybe were adverse to before.
The last few months, I've been struggling with prayer. People ask me, "How's prayer going?" Well, I can tell you that it's happening. I can tell you what I'm doing in that prayer, but I can't tell you that I feel like I'm "getting anything out of it". Is it bad that I'm getting the seemingly silent treatment from the Lord? To quote one of my roommates: "Ahhh, hell naw." My prayer is dry. I'm struggling with this, and sometimes we get those little doubts saying to us, "Quit. Give up. You're clearly bad at this, so just stop now." Enter Colbie Caillat, the Evangelist you didn't even know existed.
Sometimes, when I drive, I talk to the Lord out loud. I really wish that I had a dash cam in these moments: I'm highly entertaining while driving alone (singing, dancing, talking to the Lord, giving myself pep talks, etc.) I'm sure my facial expressions to the other drivers are pretty great. Anyway, I was driving home one evening from a friend's house, and the song came on the radio. The announcement of it being a new single from her made me stop my channel surfing and listen. The lyrics started describing my heart pretty perfectly:
"I'm feeling further from You everyday. You're in the stars, yeah You're worlds away. I'm moving on, then I hear You say, 'Hold on. Hold on.' "
In my mind, I'm saying, "Whoa. That's my heart. That's where I am. This is speaking my heart to the Lord right now. Wonder where this is going."
"We're losing light yeah we're fading fast. We need a fire, need a spark, or we'll never last."
This is what my emotions try to tell me. So many times in the Christian life, we get moments of extreme consolation: of intense emotion. My emotions sometimes try to rule my soul by saying they need to be placated; I need to feel to believe. This is such a battle for all of us sometimes, even if initially during conversion. My intellect, which gratefully has had some pretty great formation (thanks, FOCUS!), reminds me that every craving can't be satiated. It's like my body: I love chocolate. I pretty much always want to eat chocolate. Even Candy Crush hasn't turned me against chocolate. But I can't eat chocolate all the time because it's not good for me. Same with our emotions; we can't live with the emotional high from certain times of prayer or a retreat or even a good night's sleep. My emotions are so freaking fickle it's ridiculous. I can't always trust them.
"Just look at Me, look at Me. I've been burning for you so long, so long."
"I look at You, and I get the feeling. I think that I should hold on."
In Blessed Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter declaring the Year of the Rosary in 2002, he invited us:
"The Church has to launch out "into the deep" in the new millennium beginning with the contemplation of the face of Christ."
I've heard this so many times, but it's been in the forefront of my thoughts when I am in adoration or in front of the tabernacle: the Face of Christ. The Face of Love before us. The Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in front of me, for me to gaze on with love. For me to be able to simply sit with when there are no words. For me to stare at when I'm empty. For me to love when it's hard to believe there's more than a piece of bread before me. For me to learn the greatest of all things: love. A great friend once reminded me that the fruit of our prayer should always be to love more. Prayer should allow us to love without abandon, to love more boldly. In this time of desolation, the Face of Christ is reminding me to love when love is clearly not returned. No, friends, I'm not saying Jesus doesn't love me. I am saying He's teaching me how to love Him more fully, so I can love others to the fullest extent. To be able to gaze upon the face of love and feel nothing is a sad part of my heart, but to know that it's more than emotion, that it's choice that brought me into the chapel after my late night run, that's brought me to my knees in my room when I'm falling asleep during my praying with Scripture, that choice brings me to Mass to fully participate, that's the part I hold on to. I used to be so good at loving even when I knew I annoyed people. I used to be able to still pray out the phlegmatic part of me that knows another is being irrationally angry with me, but I know, and everyone else knows, that I did nothing wrong. Where have I lost the grace of love, the virtue of mission for those harder to love? Where has my heart gone wrong here? It doesn't matter where, as long as I learn, move forward, love and hold on.
So, I guess you could say that Colbie Caillat ended my dry streak briefly. Going to the chapel when there's an aversion to doing so, moving forward with prayer, even when I have 1,000 other things I could be doing. The better part, that's my choice.
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